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When the family arrives at Auschwitz, the men and women are separated, and Eliezer sees his mother and sisters vanishing in the distance. He holds onto his father and is determined not to lose him. A fellow prisoner tells Eliezer to say that he is eighteen (though he is really fourteen) and that his father is forty (though he is fifty). The prisoners who have been at Auschwitz for awhile are brutal and cruel to the new arrivals, and one of them tells them about the crematory. Some of the young men talk about revolting but are silenced by their elders. Then, everyone is forced to march past SS officer Dr. Mengele, who uses a baton to pick out who will remain alive and who will go to the crematory. Dr. Mengele looks cruel yet intelligent, and Eliezer tells him that he is eighteen and a farmer. Eliezer and his father are placed in the same group, which they are informed is the one destined for the crematory. Eliezer watches in horror as a truck full of children drives up to a giant, fiery ditch and the children are put into the flames. Eliezer's father is sad that he is going to see his only son consumed by fire, and he tells Eliezer that humanity is not present in the concentration camps. As the parade of men starts to recite the prayer for the dead for themselves and his father begins to weep, for the first time Eliezer feels himself revolt against God. The men march closer and closer to a fiery ditch, but at the last minute, they swerve away from the fiery ditch. Eliezer says he will never forget that night and the children's faces that he saw burned in flames. On that night his faith was consumed, and the silence of the night made him lose his will to live.